tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29711878.post4568591953651330857..comments2024-03-23T09:27:34.737+02:00Comments on Traditionalists: Heidegger and TraditionalismMark Sedgwickhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09998818251387897344noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29711878.post-46719067251744965072011-04-25T08:15:51.533+02:002011-04-25T08:15:51.533+02:00Reilly's article is a nice summary of a terrib...Reilly's article is a nice summary of a terribly dense book. But the comparisons he makes between Heidegger and Guenon are untenable for anyone with even a whit of understanding of their respective ideas. Heidegger's phenomenology which "appeals to the actual phenomena of existence" is a completely anti-metaphysical way of approaching ontology and is basically the same method used by the empiricist or experimental scientist. Guenon's approach to ontology relies on the complete a priori acceptance in principle of any possibility which is not self-contradictory (the Infinite or Universal Possibility in his terms). This, in fact, transcends ontology in the etymological sense of the word (discourse about Being/what is). For Heidegger, the human being is fundamentally temporal and historically conditioned; for Guenon, nothing exists apart from its immutable and transcendent principle. Also, what Reilly writes about Guenon's opinion of Plato is nowhere to be found in his works. Guenon's invective is reserved strictly for modern philosophy (from Descartes onwards), including, one can safely assume, Heidegger himself. Guenon has what one might call a reservedly positive opinion of pre-modern Western philosophy (basically, Platonism and the Scholastics), which, though incomplete in his view, is in complete agreement with the Vedanta on many essential points. As for Guenon's use of primordial, it is limited simply to the Primordial Tradition, Guenon's Westernized term for the Hindu idea of Sanatana Dharma. Perhaps this is more detail than what Reilly was aiming for; this does not, however, justify even this cursory assimilation of these two writers' ideas, which are fundamentally lightyears apart from one another.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com